Government Business is Easy to Manage as Long as you Follow the Rules and Regulations – Olusade

In the count down to his official disengagement from the Civil Service, the out-going Permanent Secretary, Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), Sir Adesola Olusade had a one-on-one exclusive interview with the Editorial Team of Supremacy Magazine led by the Publisher, Princess Abigail Amalaha. Sir Olusade took the team down memory lane on his Personality, Activities, Achievements, Experiences, Challenges and What Next from him. It’s an exciting and interesting read. Excerpts:


Can we meet you sir?
Yes, I am Adesola Olusade, OON. I was born into the family of late Pa Reuben Adesola on the 18th day of March, 1964. Following gradual growth, I had my primary education at the local government authority primary school in Ilekpa Ikare, Akoko in Ondo state. Upon completion of my primary education, I attended Anglican Grammar school, Arigidi Akoko for my secondary education. I also had a brief stay at the Ondo state College of Arts and Science also in Ikale, before I proceeded for my university education in Agric Economics and graduated in July, 1987. I had my one-year mandatory service to my father land (NYSC) at the defunct Nigeria Agricultural & Cooperative Bank which had its then headquarters in Kaduna. In the year 1999, I moved to the Family Economic Advancement Programme (FEAP), under the military administration of late General Abacha. After the demise of the head of state, the programme rotated to National Poverty Alleviation Program in 1999. When the programme wounded-up in 2001, we all migrated to the civil service. That’s how I came to join the federal civil service, and rose progressively from level 13, 14, 15 and to the glory of God, I got to the apogee of my career in 2017 when I became the permanent secretary. And by the grace of God, we will be exiting the service on 29th January, 2024 after the total service years of 35. That is the man Adesola Olusade.

Can we share with you your experience as the permanent secretary in the last three years?
I have been privileged to serve in various capacities; first, I started my permanent secretary career in the former federal ministry of Youth and Sports development. That was under the Buhari administration in his first tenure. By 2019, I moved to the ministry of Niger Delta Affairs. I served about one year there and I moved to the Federal Capital Territory Administration in September 2020 and I’ve remained here till this moment and to the glory of God, we’ll be exiting from this citadel.

Ministry of Sports and Niger Delta seems are core ministries. Can you differentiate your experience there and that of FCT?
Those ones are core ministries, or better still, call them mainstream ministries. But in FCT, all of them are present. For instance, the Niger Delta is concerned with infrastructural development of the Niger Delta areas. So in FCT, generally we are concerned with the administration of the territory, not just the infrastructural development. For instance, in the FCT we have FCDA (Federal Capital Development Authority) that is concerned with infrastructural development. So you can see that it’s just like the ministry of Niger Delta. We have ministry of Youth and Sports development. The equivalent in the FCT is the Social Development Secretariat. The Social Development Secretariat coordinates the affairs of women, until recently, the ministry of women affairs, which incorporates children, gender matters, sports development and all worth not. So, when you talk of ministry of Youth and Sports, they are all embedded in the FCT. It is a bigger responsibility, a bigger schedule that is coordinated by the Permanent Secretary.

Like most Northern States, the major challenge FCT is facing now is the issue of insecurity. As the administrative officer of FCT, can you be proud to say that under your administration, you’ve done well in the area of security in the FCT?
The beauty of FCT administration is that, it is the federal capital territory. So, the responsibility of maintaining security is not that of FCT alone. All the security agencies have their headquarters here. They are primarily concerned with securing the territory. However, as the administrator of the territory, we have done much to support the security services in the territory. For instance, all the security agencies have been provided with one form of support or the other. In 2022, under the immediate past administration, we provided 55 vehicles and assorted equipment to security agencies including walkie talkies, armored protective equipment, and even teargas. Our main purpose was to ensure that they have this basic equipment to combat crime. First and foremost, they have to be safe to be able to protect us. That’s why we have to provide them with the body armors. Secondly, it is not every crime situation that they need to go with the guns, going with teargas may even solve some problems. So we provided them with some of these to aid their work. The current administration of FCT saw what have been done and the impact here, and resolved to do more. Currently, we are providing another batch of 50 vehicles to the security agencies in FCT in addition to the other array of security equipment. We offer our moral support to boost their work too. From time to time, we hold meetings with them to know those deficiencies and challenges so as to bridge the gap and support them. For instance, when a crime is reported, and no fuel is in their vehicle to arrest the situation, they cannot do much. We have then gone extra mile to provide monthly support to ensure that their basic needs are met, so they in turn can be able to protect the citizens.

Generally, what is the cause of the insecurity in FCT? Why is it looking as if it’s apparently increasing?
When you compare with other neighbouring states, and where we are coming from since FCT was created, you will have that feeling that it’s high. We don’t expect it to be. Besides, you will agree with me that FCT appears to be the safest territory in Nigeria and that’s why we see influx of people, the good, the bad, the ugly and the worse. All of them come to FCT. Let me give you an instance; through the social development secretariat, we make sure that we evacuated from the road destitute and beggars and equally take good care of them. Some of them are not destitute as they make us believe. Many of them have been caught keeping foreign currencies like; euros, pounds, dollars. A good number of them have been repatriated and settled in their various states but they still found their way back to FCT to continue their business of begging. I remember this experience of one of my colleagues, who repatriated some batch of these destitute through the rail transportation. During the second process of another batch, at the same rail station used, some of the first batch earlier repatriated were seen returning back to FCT using the same rail station. That is how serious it is. And why so? People in the territory are more generous than other places, because there is more affluence here, even beggars benefit from it. It is a lot of challenge and a hydra-headed problem, but we are trying to tackle it one after the other.

Have you been receiving support from the traditional rulers?
Sure! They have been very supportive. We use to have regular meetings with them and at those meetings, security issue is always paramount. We discuss and also provide support for them to be able to report, disclose and make contact with every other security agency. There is a sole department, a mandate secretariat in FCT that addresses the affairs of the traditional rulers, to ensure that they too can contribute their quota to security and development of FCT.

Having mentioned mandate secretariat. How are you handling the persistent issue of original inhabitants? What effort are you making for a permanent solution to that, especially on the issue of land allocation and what have you?
I would like to refer to the constitutional conference of 1956 in this regard. At that constitutional conference, as we were approaching independence (the constitutional conference held in London), one of the major concern was the fear of the minority. So a committee was constituted and it was given the terms of reference to review the fears of the minority and proffer solution. If no other, to consider creating more states as we were entering post-independence. In the course of study, the commission submitted the creation of more states and this did not solve the problem of the minority, because when a state is created, new sets of minorities will emerge. So anywhere you go, there will always be problem of indigenous communities. But the critical issue is the need to ensure fairness in what to do and I think this has been a principal concern.
We must situate this within the context of the federal capital territory itself. The federal capital territory was conceived as a home for all. At inception, the first effort was to see that the entire community are equitably mapped out. And that is why, at the early part, the inhabitants were asked to choose where they want to move to. Those in karu moved to Nasarawa State as New Karu. You have New Nyanya when they were moving to those areas. However, as at that time, the cost of compensating and relocating everybody, was beyond the reach of the federal government. Accordingly, the concept now changed, from total relocation to that of integration. What we currently have, which we are focusing on is more of integrating the existing communities into the developmental plan of the FCT. As far as we are concerned, we will continue to discuss, engage, converse and address the problems as the city is growing. That’s how it is. Naturally, every profession has its own hazard and problem. You have been around for 3 years plus. What are those major challenges you have experienced so far in FCT?
You see, even at home front, as small as the home is, the family is not without any challenge, there could be so much difficulty in its management. Not to talk of managing a whole entity as the federal capital territory. By way of information, the staff strength of the FCT is in excess of 33,000 and that means you have to constantly think of how you will provide for the workers and to ensure that they are comfortable. In the same vein, we have to address the career needs of staff. You know, it is not just one set of people. You have the very excellent and super brilliant ones, you have those that do not even know what they are doing and you have those that are just there to make trouble. Yes, you have all sorts of persons comprising the staff strength. So you have the task to address it. But I will also like to refer to the expression made by my former Boss, Bala Mohammed Musa Bello. He always said, “government business is the easiest because they are guided by rules and regulations.” So if you follow the rules and regulations, it will be easy.

This is where the problem is, some may not want to follow the rules and regulations. Some do not even know the rules and regulations. So when you bring out the rules and regulations, it may seem like, ‘what is this person trying to do’. It is all these that often come up to play. But by and large, we have tried to impact on the people to the extent we feel guided by the rules and regulations. What we also try to do is to reduce the bulky work of government to simple task. For instance, if you want career progression, follow the provisions of the civil service rule; this is the number of years you must reach before you can rise. These are the criteria; you must know it. If you know it and I equally know it, there would be no fight. But when you know it and pretend you don’t know it, or it is not fairly implemented, it creates problem.

What we have done so far is to ensure fairness in what we do. For instance, in the past three years, I’ve ensured that annual promotion is done. People that are eligible gets promoted. We know that the vacancy is a critical issue, so when the vacancy is not there, some people may not be able to be promoted even when they pass the exam. It’s not peculiar to FCT, that is the requirement. Equally, we have ensured that staff salaries and emoluments are paid as at when due. For instance, the wage award that President gave, we have paid the four months of September to December in the FCT administration. We are not owing. We attend to other matters and also work hard to ensure that we carry out our duties well.

We equally execute our official tasks with the available funds, though we know that paucity of funds does impede in achieving some our official mandate. Under my watch, we grew the Internally Generated Revenue of the FCT from 85 billion when I came in 2020 to 151 billion in 2023, by November. This we achieved, not by my efforts alone, but by the support and initiatives of the principals and that of the staff. So looking back over these three years, I say to God be the glory. A leader is always a leader. You will be faced with a lot of issues, positive and negative. Your tenure has been devoid of a lot of scandals or what have you. But something happened around September last year, where the social media was awashed with the issue of abuse of office. Can you give us an insight on that?
Hmmm! It is part of the responsibility of leadership. When you are in public office, you must be ready for such. If you don’t want such to happen, then go back home. But the reality is, you must be convinced that you are doing the right thing. Yes! some people felt they could not get what they wanted to get. Doing things the right way may not really be the hallmark for some people. They feel that things should be done their way and when you insist that it should be the right way and standard format, they tend to feel offended. Unknowingly, your choice of action could impede on the liberty some of them want to enjoy.

As a result of this, they feel the only way they can get back at you, is through such propaganda. Look at some of the issue raised; they said the Permanent Secretary is tyrannical and a tyrant is somebody that nobody can reach, who oppress others. Those that worked with me, my colleagues, I doubt if they will ever agree with such. Secondly, they said I flooded the place with employment of over 10,000 within three years. When I came in, the staff strength was 32,000 plus. As at that August-September, the pay roll had only 32000 plus. So you ask the question, where are the 10,000? So it is not really there. They said, when the minister was not around, I engaged in contract award spree. Contracts could only be awarded by the tenders’ board when the minister is around. Once the minister is not there, nobody will approve the award of contract. So where is the award really? The protest only reflected the level of their ignorance, and equally showed their penchant for falsehood and mischief. As a leader, and the head of the administration, what we know is that we are focused in what we are doing and we remain committed to the process. That is it. I remember there was a time they said, some contractors were not paid and that they want to go and protest. What I simply told them is, they should find out in other MDAs, if payments are being made as much as FCT is making. FCT continues to honor its own. But remember, FCT is like a workshop. You must make the money to spend the money. That’s why rather than focusing on expenditure, our focus has always been on how can we increase the internally generated revenue. And in this regard, I want to specifically acknowledge the effort of the current minister of FCT, Ezenwo Nyesom Wike (Esq). From the first day he came in, his concern is how do we grow the internal generated revenue of FCT. He observed that people were not paying their ground rent and now said, “everybody, go and pay your ground rent, otherwise we will revoke the land”. When you go to the section for administration of land resources, you will see people coming voluntarily now to pay. And this is impacting positively on the IGR of FCT. As a result, contractors are back on site, people are happy now, employment is being provided. So I will enjoin everyone to support this effort of government to grow the IGR of FCT and to enable us develop the territory.

You have really paid your dues having stayed for almost 35 years as a civil servant and three years plus as a permanent secretary here. Looking at issues now, you have a new minister on seat, like you told us, that you are working closely with him to achieve certain things. You will be leaving office by the grace of God in the next few days. What do you think, if given more opportunity, you will be able to achieve together with him?
Yes! You see, from the first day you join the service, you know the day you are going. So the opportunity of extending your stay does not even arise. But the issue is, for the development of the territory, it is a commitment and it’s an obligation that the leadership have and they will continue to address. To develop the city, it is not a one man’s affair. All hands must collectively be on deck. As tax payers, we need to pay our taxes. As staff of the federal capital territory, we need to support the administration to succeed. And as administrators, ministers, ministers of state, we must drive policies that are inclusive that will promote the development of the territory. This is one thing that we will want to see that the administration will continue to do. There will be criticism. Criticism is part of government. If you are not criticized, it might even mean you are not doing the right thing. when you hate doing the right thing, the right thing will infringe on the liberties of some people. They will complain. But the intent is to satisfy the majority of the people. I think that is the focus that we have here.

What would be your advice to your successor?
To my successor, he should carry on. My successor should remain focused on the development of the FCT. Permanent Secretaries are to support the administration of the minister, minister of State, the president of the federal republic of Nigeria. When our political bosses come, they come with the agenda; this is what we want to achieve. Remember, they come to achieve, to make some impact within a defined period of time. It is our obligation to ensure that they succeed. Because when they succeed, the success also rubs off on us. For instance, I mentioned to you, by November, the revenue of FCT grew to 151 billion. Not by my efforts alone, but the commitment has been there to grow the revenue of FCT. So we must all work together with our superior in synergy to ensure that we achieve the objectives of the government. This is the beauty that government have introduced in other to promote good governance. For instance, we have the ministerial delivery rules. That is, they are statements of what government wants to achieve within a defined period of time. As permanent secretary, we must work hard to ensure that these are achieved. And how do we ensure this? For instance, when the budgets are being prepared, we remind our superior we need to provide fund for this activity. When you don’t provide the funding, you will not be able to achieve it. We have to continue to provide that support, administrative support to the system, to ensure that the dividends of good governance and the mandate of the government are delivered to the city.

What will be your advice to your staff as you are leaving?
Since they were working with me, they knew that I will leave them in service. And so they’ve prepared. What we only did is to ensure that through mentoring, they’ve seen how things are done. They’ve worked with us, wonderful people, very committed, very dedicated and hardworking. I believe that all of them will carry the hard work, the culture of the hard work wherever they find themselves, and they will always excel. I did not just become who I am today, I was mentored. I remember one of my former permanent secretary, Alhaji Bukar Aji who retired as former head of service. He calls me on Saturday, on Sunday to come and deliver assignment. When he gives you assignment, you have to meet up with the time. Once we are to deliver an assignment for him, Monday is when we will do it, on Sunday you know he will call you, ‘bring the assignment’. So you work hard to achieve it. In the same way, this is how we have been working. So they are all prepared. They know that I’ll be leaving before them. Interestingly, quite a number of them will be leaving within the year too. But the difference is that, unlike the mainstream service where we came from, they have to go back to the mainstream service. Whereas, if we had been in the mainstream, they would have stay put where they are without any shaking. But by the grace of God, I know anywhere they are, they will be sought after because they know they were well trained and mentored.

What are we expecting from sir Olusade after January 29th. Are you looking towards politics?
Time will tell. As an administrator, it’s a different part from that of active politician. There is a lot of transformation that will be required. Interestingly, quite a number of my colleagues have ventured into it. Some have been successful. We have quite a number of us in the national assembly. And in that place, they are appreciated in the support they are giving to the society. Let us finish what we started first. Then we would review the situation and we will decide on what to do. But in the immediate, I have some ongoing efforts, initiatives that one not completed. I want to complete my PhD program. I want to write some books when I finish. As am working through this, the inspiration of what next to do will also emerge.

Lastly Sir, all work and no play make jack a dull boy. I know that at times, some people will say that they relax through working. I don’t know whether that’s your own style of relaxing?
No, I don’t relax through working. I relax with my family, I play badminton. When I served in Youth and Sports, it exposed me to a lot of sporting events. So I play games, I do exercise, and of course I love reading. That’s probably why I want to do some write up, myself. By the time I finish it, I believe the audience, there will still be some that will listen and will want to read the books, the works, in other to document some of the accomplishments. There must be an end to a particular phase and that is what we are doing. Because, if I stay put here, others will not be able to advance. It will be a disadvantage to them. Who says others cannot even do better than I have? So that’s why the system has designed it in such a way that at a point, you will leave, let others also come in and play their part. We have come, we have seen, we have conquered and to God be the glory.